The Pandavas Retire

After ominous signs spread through the kingdom, Arjuna returns pale and grieving. He tells Yudhisthira that Krsna has left him and that the Yadava and Vrishni warriors are dead.

Arjuna recounts how a prank against visiting sages produced a cursed iron ball, how it was ground and cast into the sea, and how fearful omens later led Krsna to move the Yadavas from Dwaraka to sacred Prabhasa.

At Prabhasa, intoxicated Satyaki condemns Krtavarma for the night massacre and beheads him; Krtavarma's allies then kill Satyaki and Pradyumna. Reeds grown from the cursed iron become lethal clubs, and the clans annihilate themselves as Krsna joins the destruction after his son's death.

Balarama enters meditation on the shore and the divine serpent Ananta emerges and goes to the ocean. Krsna sits beneath a tree and, through his own illusory energy, allows a hunter to mistake his foot for an animal and strike it with an iron-tipped arrow before the assembled gods. The chapter later states explicitly that neither deity can die and that their apparent deaths and remaining bodies are a divine display.

When Daruka brings the news to Dwaraka, Vasudeva and Devaki collapse and give up their lives in grief for Krsna. Arjuna performs their funeral rites, Vasudeva's other wives enter his pyre, and after the Prabhasa cremations Rukmini and Krsna's other principal queens enter the pyre of their departed lord.

After weeks of last rites for Krsna, Balarama, and the destroyed clans, Arjuna follows Krsna's instruction and leads Dwaraka's surviving women, children, priests, merchants, and laborers toward Indraprastha. As the grieving procession leaves, the sea floods the island fortress behind them.

Cowherd robbers attack the refugees and carry away many women. Arjuna can barely string the Gandiva and cannot summon his celestial weapons. He brings the survivors to Indraprastha and installs the boy Vajra as king, then visits Vyasa before returning to Hastinapura; the sage explains that Krsna's withdrawal has ended the time for Arjuna's old power and that the Pandavas' own time has come.

Accepting Vyasa's message that their own time has come, the brothers install Pariksit as king and Krpa as his counselor. They give away their wealth, exchange royal clothing for bark, and leave Hastinapura with Draupadi following.

At a northern lake Agni appears and tells Arjuna that the work for which the Gandiva and inexhaustible quivers were granted is complete. Arjuna finally releases the weapons into the water for Varuna, and the family continues beyond the Himalayas toward Meru and Gandhamadana.

Draupadi, Sahadeva, Nakula, Arjuna, and Bhima fall in turn while Yudhisthira continues without turning back. When Bhima asks why, Yudhisthira names the remaining pride or partiality exposed in each: Draupadi favored Arjuna; Sahadeva prized his wisdom; Nakula his beauty; Arjuna had proudly promised to destroy the Kauravas in one day; and Bhima ate greatly without considering others.

Indra offers Yudhisthira a place on his chariot but refuses the dog that has followed him. Yudhisthira rejects heaven rather than abandon a devoted dependent, and the dog reveals himself as Dharma, who declares the test complete.

Yudhisthira enters heaven in his human body and is astonished to find Duryodhana honored on a golden throne. Narada explains that Duryodhana earned a temporary celestial reward by fearlessly following the warrior code, but Yudhisthira refuses to value that heaven without Krsna, his brothers, and Draupadi.

Guides lead Yudhisthira into a hellish region, where voices identify themselves as Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula, Sahadeva, Draupadi, and their allies. Although bewildered by their apparent fate, Yudhisthira orders the guides to leave him there because his presence eases his loved ones' suffering.

Indra and the gods arrive, the hellish scene disappears, and Indra explains that the vision was a brief expiation rather than the family's true destination. Yudhisthira sees his brothers, Draupadi, Karna, and the other warriors in heaven, then bathes in the celestial Ganga called Mandakini, receives a divine form, and finally sees Krsna with Arjuna in Indra's palace.